Jazz

Ray Charles was the musician most responsible for developing soul music. Singers like Sam Cooke and Jackie Wilson also did a great deal to pioneer the form but Charles did even more to devise a new form of black pop by merging '50s R&B with gospel-powered vocals adding plenty of flavor from contemporary jazz blues and (in the '60s) country. Then there was his singing; his style was among the most emotional and easily identifiable of any 20th-century performer up there with the likes of Elvis and Billie Holiday. He was also a superb keyboard player arranger and bandleader. The brilliance of his 1950s and '60s work however can't obscure the fact that he made few classic tracks after the mid-'60s though he recorded often and performed until the year before his death.